First off I want to say this is my first post and want to say that I love this forum so far, I've found tons of info on arcade cabs here and more yet to find. I'd hoped my first post would be about the custom cab I'm planning but that will come later.

I have two consoles I'm working on right now that I'm having issues with, a model 2 Genesis and a SHVC SNES. Both are out of an eBay lot that I got for a decent price and now trying to flip these to recoup money, and were pretty rough when I got them...looked like they had been pulled out of a mud hole and dried out during shipping. The genesis now has power and is getting video to the tv but never makes it past the initial licensing info, goes to a black screen and nothing else. I've tried different cables, games, and power supply with same result...said cables and games work fine on other consoles. Caps visually look ok and connector has been cleaned and re-tensioned.

The SNES has a solid multi out and power but only gets a black screen. I tried all of the same stuff with it I did with the genesis with the same results. Connector looks good and caps seem to be ok, also tried with SHVC disconnected. From what I've read it could have a bad CPU or PPU but haven't found much on how to confirm this.

Just curious, how much do you think you are going to get when you "flip" them?

I have done this before and lost my shirt on reconditioned consoles and other similar electronic toys off ebay.

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Honestly I was thinking unless it happens to be a real simple problem or you don't value your time I doubt you'll make a cent. I mean you can get guaranteed to work Genesis on gamestop right now for 30 bucks. The snes might sell for a slightly higher price, but I've never heard of a broken one before.... they are kind of bulletproof unless they've been put underwater and rusted badly or the wrong voltage has been ran through the system. In either case repairs are unlikely.

Well I'm not necessarily trying to make money on these although if I do I'm fine with that obviously, really just trying to get money back that I spent on the lot I bought. Making money or finding deals on games are long gone and although some areas still have some good places, where I live is not one of them. So what I've been doing lately is looking for bulk lots that are untested or general descriptions and go after those. I pick what want out and re-list what I already have or don't want and if I'm lucky I get all my money back. Most of the time consoles will be working but sometimes they need a little work. The lot I won ended up costing about $90 and came with 2 model 2s, 1 NES, a SNES mini and a bunch of controllers and connectors. I really only wanted the mini so I'm selling almost everything else. It really kind of a hobby I guess, I kinda like seeing if I can fix the broken ones and also seeing if I can come out in the + on the deal. I guess it's kinda like gambling, sometimes I win sometimes not.

Anyway, I've never run into these issues and was hoping someone could enlighten me. I'm pretty sure the snes is DOA but the genesis intrigues me a bit.

The nes has decent gamepads and is in good cosmetic shape you can probably get most of your money back from it alone.

It sounds like something is borked on the genesis cart connecter and seeing as how you've cleaned it you would have to check all the individual pins and their traces going back to the chips. A multi-meter with continuity testing would work for that. I would also check the power adapter. The model 1 I bought last year actually had blown caps in the power brick. It wasn't enough to completely kill it, but it wouldn't work quite right. The caps inside are replaceable. Of course buying a new adapter is easier.

Just curious, how much do you think you are going to get when you "flip" them?

I have done this before and lost my shirt on reconditioned consoles and other similar electronic toys off ebay.

Well as Howard mentioned the Genesis doesn't go for much, although I don't take a whole lot of stock in what GameStop guarantees nowadays when it comes to retro games besides the return policy. A working SNES is averaging about $50-60 by itself on eBay lately, and a NES is about the same. But with eBay nothing is really guaranteed it can go either way. Your best bet is looking for easy fixes. Most common issues just dirty loose cartridge slots, just clean and a little bending and like new. Another you will see is broken solder joints in the a/c input or video out, if you can solder this is a super easy fix, especially common with Segas. I had to fix one of the ones in this lot. Caps or voltage regulators are less common with these but it does happen, again probably more common with sega. Anything beyond that is kinda outside my wheelhouse, but Youtube is one hellava drug.

The nes has decent gamepads and is in good cosmetic shape you can probably get most of your money back from it alone.

It sounds like something is borked on the genesis cart connecter and seeing as how you've cleaned it you would have to check all the individual pins and their traces going back to the chips. A multi-meter with continuity testing would work for that. I would also check the power adapter. The model 1 I bought last year actually had blown caps in the power brick. It wasn't enough to completely kill it, but it wouldn't work quite right. The caps inside are replaceable. Of course buying a new adapter is easier.

The snes is probably dead.

I actually read the post earlier today at work (shhh!), never would have thought of that or that it could cause all of that. I would have thought it would just go out and not power on anymore from something like that. I may try looking at that, although I have some extra power supplies I can try so I may do that first. Either way I learned something there.

So, where do you live that you can actually make a profit flipping consoles? I'll be happy to drop ship you some from GameStop.

Again I'm not doing this to try to make a profit, maybe I worded things wrong at the start at this post, I'm just trying to recoup money on items I don't need. Alot of people that collect do this all the time, if I could go to a local flea market or thrift store and get bargains I would but everybody around here is in tune with the retro gaming market so those kind of deals don't exist here. And GameStop's pricing on retro consoles are kind of all over the place so I don't know if that's necessarily a good representation of what reasonable pricing should be.

30 dollars for a model 1 genesis is pretty darn good. Finding a genesis cheap is easy, but finding one that doesn't look like hot garbage is hard. I wouldn't buy retro games from gamestop as they don't have any idea what they are doing, but my experience buying consoles has been really good. They are always very clean and in at least decent cosmetic condition. Typically they work as well and of course if they don't you can return them.

You can always mod the console cases with a Pi and flip them that way. With some games you could make a tidy sum.

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"I really do feel pity for those who go out of their way to perform a personal slight, than taking the effort in joining the conversation and creating some useful dialogue which would benefit the persons' perusal of this topic. Yet where would we be without the persistant antagonist?"

30 dollars for a model 1 genesis is pretty darn good. Finding a genesis cheap is easy, but finding one that doesn't look like hot garbage is hard. I wouldn't buy retro games from gamestop as they don't have any idea what they are doing, but my experience buying consoles has been really good. They are always very clean and in at least decent cosmetic condition. Typically they work as well and of course if they don't you can return them.

Oh I agree $30 is a good price for the Sega, hard to beat really if its in clean, complete and in good working order. Some of the others seem a bit high though. $90 for a SNES or NES is pretty steep IMO and $70 for an indigo GC doesn't make a lot a sense to me. There's a few others but those are the ones that stand out to me though. I will say that the price on N64 controllers seem to be reasonable, those have really been going up lately but I can live with $9-10 if its a licensed one.

You can always mod the console cases with a Pi and flip them that way. With some games you could make a tidy sum.

Well funny you mentioned that, a friend at work has to non-working ones (1genesis & 1SNES) that he plans to do just that with but to keep for himself. We have talked about trading consoles if I can't fix these, only because of the issues with those seem to things I can fix, like broken power ports and stuff. I probably wont go that route, but I have thought about doing a Pi Gameboy, those are pretty neat.

You can always mod the console cases with a Pi and flip them that way. With some games you could make a tidy sum.

I have a dead genesis 2 Ithink & snes i plan to do this to but for myself.they both looked like they were underwater going by the way everything was rusted and corroded to chit inside.got them cheap off ebay.strange nobody bid on them....